00:00Luke and Nate here with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel.
00:08We're here in the Alaskan bush camping in a blizzard with no tent.
00:21It's a cold winter morning here in Alaska.
00:24The sun's been up for 30 minutes which means it's only 11 a.m.
00:28We've got about four and a half hours of sunlight left.
00:31So we got to find a spot to camp, build a shelter, get a fire, all that good stuff in
00:38a very quick amount of time.
00:47Oh, there's a lot of rabbit tracks around here.
00:57Look at that, big old fat snowshoe hare.
01:08All right Nate, what do you think about this spot?
01:13Okay, there you go, you've got snowshoes bud.
01:26I have no idea how deep this snow is.
01:29We've got some depth.
01:31The ground's going to take us years.
01:35Well that's pretty deep.
01:37Wait.
01:39You're tall as I am.
01:43I'm going to try to...
02:26All right, I think I need to cut some more.
02:55All right, I think I need to cut some stairs in this.
03:02Every time you dig one of these things, you never really know what's going to be under the snow.
03:06You could have big stumps or rocks or, you know, who knows what.
03:10Luckily we just got a few willow bushes, so we're going to get those out of the way.
03:25Let's get you a little snack.
03:27Oh, does that look good?
03:45You having fun?
03:46Yeah.
03:47Good.
03:48So you can see here, I'm making kind of an S shape to this trench.
03:52And I'm doing that to keep the wind from blowing straight down the trench.
03:56All right, now I just need to put a roof on it so that if we get a big dump of snow tonight,
04:01we don't wake up under a foot of snow.
04:03Let's go find some wood.
04:07Not a lot of standing deadwood around here, and anything on the ground is buried.
04:12Oh man, we're going to have trouble finding wood.
04:17I'm just not seeing any standing deadwood.
04:20There's a big moose print, see?
04:22That's the big moose.
04:25There's a fox.
04:28There's a rabbit print.
04:33Man, it's a beautiful area.
04:35Got a little dead spruce right there.
04:50I'm going to go see if this fits.
04:56Oh, not by much, but it fits.
05:20There we go.
05:43I hope I built this roof sturdy enough, because if we get a foot or two of snow, it's going
05:46to get really heavy.
05:48We've got a lot of cross members to try to distribute the weight, and we'll see what happens.
06:19A lot of these self-inflating mattresses don't work as well in the cold.
06:25The plastic gets too stiff.
06:27This one doesn't want to do anything.
06:30Oh yeah.
06:32There we go.
06:34Luckily, it's not so big.
06:36There we go.
06:46There you go.
06:47Got to take your boots off.
06:49We're going to put on your camp boots.
06:52These will keep your feet warm without getting your bag dirty.
06:55But just don't walk on the snow in these, okay?
06:58I got it.
07:00Blanky time.
07:02Okay.
07:03I got to get some firewood cut up.
07:05Okay.
07:24Oh boy, that's a pretty small pile of firewood.
07:26Just wasn't able to find much in the way of deadfalls here.
07:29I really want to have a fire right as I go to bed tonight and in the morning when we
07:33wake up.
07:34So I'm going to cook with my stove, just kind of save our firewood.
07:40Look at this.
07:42Nathan's already fast asleep.
07:44But I'm going to get him some food before I wake him up.
07:49Got some reindeer sausage here.
08:04Okay.
08:12The normal backpacking stoves you see a lot run off of pressurized isobutane.
08:16But it doesn't work in cold temperatures.
08:19So I'm using white gas, liquid white gas.
08:22But this stuff's actually kind of cool.
08:24This stove will run off of diesel, kerosene, white gas.
08:28You know, so you got a lot of different options.
08:34Okay.
09:04Nathan, buddy, wake up, we got dinner.
09:24Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, we got dinner.
09:29There we go.
09:30Some reindeer sausage curry.
09:33Does that taste good, bud?
09:35Yeah, nice and warm food.
09:39Oh, my goodness.
09:41This smells so good.
09:43That reindeer tikka masala curry.
09:46Oh, that warms me up.
09:49It's probably just because I'm so cold and hungry, but this is the best tasting curry I've ever had.
10:03It is rough starting a fire when everything's covered in ice and snow.
10:14It's worse than trying to start a fire in a pouring rainstorm.
10:28All right, time to do the dishes.
10:33Okay.
10:41If you watch my shows, you know I swear by these 12-hour adhesive body warmers.
10:47They are great for keeping kids warm in their sleeping bags.
10:53Go ahead and hop in bed.
10:57How's that, Nathan? You warm?
10:59Well, this is Nathan's first time using his brand new winter sleeping bag, and it's a really nice bag.
11:05It's very hard to find good kids' bags, but Feathered Friends, which makes some of the best down sleeping bags on the market, they will customize the lengths for you.
11:15So I got him one of the women's bags, which are narrower than the men's bags, and I just had him shorten it a bunch.
11:22So this is about a five-foot, four-inch sleeping bag, and he's about four feet tall, so he's got plenty of room to grow into it.
11:30You like that, Nathan?
11:34The boy just burrows in there like a tick.
11:37We're going to put Nathan's boots and his coat up here so it doesn't get snowed on.
11:43I'm going to do the same thing with my coat.
11:45That's going to be my pillow tonight.
11:47Hey, Nathan, do you want me to put your blankie in your sleeping bag?
11:53Well, it's nine o'clock, so the sun has been down for five and a half hours already.
11:59But I think I am going to get ready for bed and hop in my sleeping bag, maybe watch a movie or something, just kind of take it easy.
12:07I'm kind of envying Nathan. He'll cuddle up right there.
12:10I don't have as much room as Nathan, so I'm going to put my boots under my mat like that to keep the snow out of them.
12:17You know, these big fluffy sleeping bags are great insulators, but they have one weakness.
12:22The part of the bag that's underneath you is squished by your body weight.
12:26And when your bag is squished, it doesn't insulate heat very well.
12:30So that's why it's really important to have a good mat to make up for that lack of insulation underneath you.
12:38And I've got this Mundo King Therm-a-Rest, and it's just kind of the best in the business.
12:44This thing is such a great, great insulator.
12:56Well, guys, I have slept better tonight than I have in a long time.
13:01We slept ten and a half hours. It's almost nine o'clock right now, and the sun's still not up.
13:07Well, we got a bit of a storm last night. We had this howling wind coming through the valley.
13:12You could hear it just roaring through the trees, but we're in a real sheltered spot.
13:16So only occasionally a gust would rock the shelter.
13:19But the wind didn't get in at all, so it's nice and toasty in here.
13:27Oh, yeah, we got some snow up there.
13:30I think there's a bit of snow on our roof.
13:32Hey, Nate, you cozy?
13:33Yeah.
13:34Good.
13:36Two thumbs up. Awesome, Eber.
13:38That means two balls.
13:40Oh, I don't want to get out of my sleeping bag.
13:43When I was a kid, our youth group from church used to go winter camping all the time.
13:46And one time we'd made a whole bunch of snow caves, and everyone was all tucked in their snow caves.
13:52And a big old moose came walking through and stepped through the roof of one of the kids' snow caves.
13:58And the hoof came through right next to his head.
14:02And he just went, ah, started screaming, and the moose freaked out.
14:06And it started dancing and ran off and trampled his snow cave in.
14:11Luckily, it didn't step on the kid, but he was sitting there in a pile of snow going, oh, gosh.
14:22I don't think we'll have any moose stepping on us today.
14:28All right, I'm doing it.
14:30Definitely got some snow last night.
14:32All the firewood's covered in snow. Yay.
14:35All right.
14:44Man, you can really hear the wind now.
14:46The snow insulates the sound so much, you just couldn't hear how loud it was.
14:52It's really roaring out here.
14:54Man, the snow's still coming down pretty good.
14:56I don't want to get all wet.
14:58I think I'm just going to bust the stove out and cook under the awning.
15:05I got a muffin here. You want to eat a muffin?
15:16A little trick for melting snow.
15:19You got to put a little water in the bottom of the pan or you'll melt your pot.
15:23It doesn't take much.
15:25Oh, Mekong oranges, my absolute favorite fruit in the world.
15:51Ready for some hot chocolate?
15:53You want your egg first? Okay.
15:59Here you go, there's your egg.
16:23I've got some brownie mix inside this mug.
16:35We're going to make steamed brownies.
16:42The brownies are almost done, so we're going to get some ice cream to go with our brownies.
16:46Just take some of the fluffy new snow here.
16:49Just a little dab of vanilla.
16:53And sweetened condensed milk.
16:56And it should be cold. You don't want to melt your snow.
17:05If it's really cold and dry snow, it works a little better.
17:08This is kind of wet stuff.
17:12There we go, vanilla ice cream.
17:17Does that taste good? Tastes like real ice cream.
17:24My fingers are so cold I can grab it right out of the boiling water.
17:28There we go, steamed brownie.
17:30When you steam a brownie, it comes out just like it was baked, only it's more moist.
17:35It's really nice.
17:39You know what this brownie needs? Some ice cream.
17:47Oh, you don't want any of this, Nathan. It doesn't taste very good.
17:53You like that?
17:55I got more reindeer sausage. That's my breakfast.
18:10I'm really glad we picked this spot.
18:13These trees are taking the brunt of this wind.
18:16Man, you can hear it just howling over there.
18:19Apparently last night around 1am there was 90 mph winds.
18:23And it's been pumping between 20-30 mph winds just a few hundred yards up the side of the valley.
18:30It's been really nasty.
18:32But we're down here in this little gully and it's just every once in a while we get a crazy gust of wind comes ripping through.
18:38But you can go and you can see the trees up on the side of the mountain are just ripping and moving back and forth.
18:44So Becca's been texting me trying to make sure that we're okay.
18:47And luckily I've got this little Garmin inReach Mini so I've been able to text her back and say,
18:51No, no, we're fine. We're fine.
18:53And it's really nice being underneath the snow.
18:56You just can't hear anything and the wind just doesn't affect you at all.
18:59I gotta get you dressed. It's gonna be cold.
19:06Alright, Nathan, shall we pack it up and snowshoot out of here?
19:09Yeah.
19:10Alright, let's do it.
19:12Weedle, weedle, weedle.
19:14It's sad to tear it down. It's been a great shelter.
19:16But I need my tarp bag.
19:28You okay back there?
19:34Oh, Nathan, I'm tired. How about you?
19:37Whew!
19:38Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video.
19:41If you want to see more extreme camping videos and winter survival videos,
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19:53Thanks for watching. Click subscribe!
19:56Nailed it!
19:57Whew! Let's go inside.
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